The Domestic Arrangements South Of The Border
Haresh Shah
I met Pepe Morales during a Playmate promotional jaunt in Acapulco. Our publishers have hired Pepe to cover the event – a young Mexican photographer and socialite of some renown . He seems to know everyone we run into and is greeted with the warmest abrazoz and pats on the back, while he bumbles around following the Playmates and documenting the weekend, with me taking additional photos whenever I am able to sneak some shots without neglecting my duties that of the Playboy executive on site.
Pepe and I hit it off right away. When back in Mexico City, we meet one evening for dinner. We have fat juicy steak dinners at Barbas Negras during which we drown three bottles of Los Reyes. Feeling absolutely no pain, Pepe asks:
‘What would you like to do now?’
‘I don’t know. This is your town. Maybe go cunt chasing?’
‘Why not? Let’s just get out of here and together we’ll paint the town red,’ he proclaims.
So we get into his fire red Mach 1 and end up at the cozy Las Nueves. Unfortunately for us, since Pepe’s last visit there, it has now turned into a trendy gay hangout. We have a drink or two there and then make our exit.
‘I know where we can go. To your casa amarilla.’ So we end up at the lobby bar of Camino Real. This gives us time to simmer. As in Acapulco, Pepe seems to know everyone and everyone seems to know him. People would stop by, couples, men, women – especially women and they go through their Mexican tango of hugging, patting the back and then parting with promises to meet up soon again. At the end of which, two of his female acquaintances walk up with exuberant Hola Pepito. He invites them to join us. Introduces me and builds me up as el hombre de Playboy. Curiously, it’s a pair of a blonde and a brunette. Both good looking. Gives me a feeling of being society girls about town. Quite friendly. But they speak only perfunctory English. We have a couple of drinks with them and then Pepe proposes.
‘How if we go to my place and party?’
The girls try a bit hard to get, but then after some prodding from Pepe, seconded by me, we all pile into his compact sports car, somehow managing to squeeze ourselves in. Pepe and Lucia in the front and me and Tere in the back.
●●●
On that Saturday, Pepe has invited me to his place for breakfast. He feels it’s unpardonable that as long as I have been coming to Mexico, nobody has yet gotten around to take me to the Pyramids. Why don’t you come over to my place on Saturday, we’ll have a nice breakfast and then drive out to the Pyramids?
Pepe’s is a spacious penthouse apartment near the Chapultepec Park in the center of Mexico City. Cascades of light pours in through the skylights illuminating dozens of artworks and the blown up photographs that adore the walls. Some of the photographs with blurred images of the billowing skirts of the folk dancers remind me of Holi festival in India. He’s not only a photographer but also a serious artist and all that hangs on the walls is his own work. The place looks larger than I remember it from a couple of nights ago. I think it contains three, if not four bedrooms. Large kitchen and the dining room. Even though some of the furnishings has that colorful feeling of Mexico, most of it is the modern functional. It feels warm and comfortable.
When I arrive, I am greeted by a tall, angular faced, as if lifted from a cubist art, long necked and sharp penetrating dark eyed woman standing on the other side of the threshold. She doesn’t say anything, but silently welcomes me with a toss of her head. Her long and curly hair following the motion of her neck.
‘Hola Haresh. Bien venido mi amigo a tu casa en Mexico.’ Pepe rushes towards me, suddenly throwing the woman in the background with a fuerte abrazo, and the pat on the back he takes me by the arm and leads me to the table. Such exuberance! But this is Mexico and I am getting used to it.
The table is laid out just so. The plates glowing with vibrant colors are nestled into the larger shiny copper plates that serve as placemats. The clothes napkins are bright burgundy. A jar sweating of freshly squeezed orange juice awaits. The pungent aroma of strong Mexican coffee permeates the air. Engulfed in Pepe’s exuberance and displayed hospitality, for a moment I even forget about the pretty young woman.
I am treated to a sumptuous Mexican breakfast consisting of fresh papayas and mangoes, huevos rancheros with home made red and green salsas, frijoles, chorizzo, piping hot tortillas and even chiles toreados – the pan fried hot jalapeño peppers with fresh scallions. The relish my Latin Valentine Patricia had introduced me to and Pepe remembered me telling him how very much I loved it. And of course the strong café Mexicano served so attentively and gracefully by his maid Clarissa. For every gracias I utter, she rewards me with de nada and with the sweetest little smile and a sparkle in her eyes. At every compliment, I feel that extra hump in her short walk between the kitchen and the dining room as I watch her long curly hair tossing up above small of her back and caressing her shoulders. She looks very young, like in her late teens the most. But even in her innocence, I sense a certain worldliness on her face and in her eyes. Would certainly qualify to be a Playmate. Even in her homely dress covered with an overall, her figure and her beauty excel.
Seeing that I am eying her, should we take her along? Asks Pepe.
‘Sure. Why not?’
‘Let’s do it. It would do her good to get out of the house. Why don’t you ask her?’
‘Me?’
“Si. Then she wouldn’t feel pressured!’
‘No quires ir con nosotros?’ I ask
‘A donde?’
‘A los Pirámides.’
‘Puess…,’ she says and then hesitates a bit and turns her face to Pepe.
‘Puedes, si quires, Venn!’ She turns around to face me.
‘Entonces si. Me gustaria mucho. Gracias.’
When we’re done and she has cleared the table, Pepe tells her to leave the dishes alone and go and change.
Transformed, a gorgeous young woman emerges from the back room. She is dressed in a simple long white cotton dress. It’s trimmed with wide bands of light grey lace around the neck and the waist and the hem, practically touching the floor, a wide white sash tied in a bow at her back billowing in the air. A simple silver hoop choker with a dangling little ball adores her neck. Her sculpted face with high cheek bones and the shoulders pointed proudly upwards, she stands tall on her plain white platform shoes. Her slightly slanted eyes enhanced with the kohl outline, she wears only a light touch of red lipstick on her pert lips quivering under her dainty little nose.
It seems Pepe too is in awe of her sudden transformation from a simple maid serving us humbly a while ago into a femme fatal. Something he probably haven’t yet had a chance to see. And when placed in front of the Pyramids, neither Pepe, nor I could ignore her. Between us two, we turn Clarissa into the most sought after photo model. She doesn’t say much, except swirl and move as we request, flash shy smiles as if to herself and in her face I see her savoring what must have been a unique moment of her young life. To be appreciated for her own natural beauty and in an environment which undoubtedly is hers. She doesn’t look Spanish and or Indian or a mulatta, the mixture of the two. Her face wears the looks and the pride of an Aztec Princess reincarnate, standing comfortably in front of the Pyramids and the ruins of the ancient Aztec built city of Tenochtitlan, as if she owns them.
●●●
On our way back, Pepe drops off Clarissa before taking me back to my hotel. We are in contemplative mood. We avoid the bustles of the lobby bar and settle ourselves over beers in their by now subdued cantina.
‘She is pretty!’ I say reflexively.
‘Who, Clarissa?’
‘Who else?’
‘You’re right. She is prettier than I ever thought she was.’ And then we are quiet. I see a certain smile cross his face, as if trying to contain a private joke.
‘What?’
‘I guess, I picked her right.’
‘Did you interview many of them?’
‘No, that’s not how we do things around here in Mexico. One weekend, I just drove out to the country bazar, she was standing there up above on cliff under the tree with others, and I picked her.’
‘You mean like from a line up?’
‘Not exactly. But sort of. They are offered for the domestic work, mostly by their parents.’
‘You mean like slaves?’
‘Noooooo mi amigo. Just that they are poor in the backlands and one way for them to make some money is to work in the city. You negotiate with their parents and agree upon the monthly salary and other conditions. But she is free to leave whenever she wants to.’
Having grown up in India in a relatively affluent family, domestic help is not that unusual to me. But all our servants came from little villages to Bombay on their own, looking for jobs. They may have known someone else from their village in the city and then its just a word of mouth. What Pepe tells me is a bit different. Seeing me lost in my unspoken thoughts, he continues.
‘I pay all her expenses. She has every Sunday off and has her own living quarters in the back of my apartment.’
‘How does that work? A young pretty woman living under the same roof?’
‘You’re right. There is always that possibility. And the temptation. As you see, she is very pretty, you know?’ I give him a sideway look.
‘Okay. I could take advantage of her if I wanted to, and get away with it without even risking losing her. But your friend here is a romantic type. I had to pursue her, and pursue her long.’
I don’t interrupt.
‘She always resisted my advances. And I respected her for that. And then one evening, without any warning, she just opened up to me, like a flower. Like an orchid!!’ I can see on Pepe’s face what he must be seeing, something I could just imagine.
‘Doesn’t that put a damper on your social life with other women?’
‘Not at all. At the end of the day, she realizes, and I make sure she knows that the first and the foremost she is my maid.’
‘Yes, but we’re now talking matters of the heart. How does she feel about when we showed up in the middle of the night with the two women a couple of days go? Or was she off that night?’
‘No she was very much there, and she didn’t like it. In fact she is quite crossed with me. Thanks for being so kind to her and making her feel special. I think she is now softened a bit and I’m sure we’ll make up.’
Just a few hours drive from Santa Barbara and you’re in Mexico. What a different world? I think.
© Haresh Shah 2014
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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